u/Double-Doughnut9265

is it possible to forgive someone after emotional cheating?

so during a night out my boyfriend had posted a picture of us from earlier in the day. he fell asleep and i was still awake and his phone was laying next to him and i happened to see he got a notification of a message from a girl. i have never gone through his phone but something just told me to investigate. she responded “hmm” to the photo of us. i pretended to be him and responded with a “?” and then she processed to ask “you weren’t single this whole time?” and i said what made you think that and she said bc of the dating app. i freaked. we had met on a dating app but i assumed he had deleted it when he became official and he said he did. i redownloaded one and was able to log in to find that he had messaged a girl back in february and we had been officially dating for 3 months. the messages were brief and he didn’t respond after his first initial message and that’s the only conversation i could find while we were together but it’s still cheating to me. also the girl who slid up on his story is a different girl and after going through her profile i found that he had liked one of her stories too. after confronting him he said the messages from february were from a time when he was feeling insecure and not seen by me and his trust issues made him think i was doing stuff and instead of talking to me he went and looked for external validation. the girl who’s story he liked he said was a lapse of judgment and mistake. he swears it’s not a pattern and will never happen again and loves me and only me and didn’t wanna lose me. typing all this out i feel like an idiotic even considering giving him another chance to earn my trust back. they say once a cheater leads a cheater right? im scared if he did it once he’ll do it again. is it possible to forgive someone after emotional cheating? are cheaters capable of change and growth? should i even bother or am i just being delusional and making a mistake?